...but what do you want? xD

"You did say 'surprise me,'" Mozzie said with as straight a face as he could manage. Neal pouted at him.

"I meant in the context of Chinese food, which I thought we agreed on. Falafels was not part of the surprise!"

"Are you going to sulk about it? You are, aren't you?"

"I'm not sulking. This is disappointment, Moz, not sulking." It sure looked like sulking to someone who knew Neal for more years than even Kate could claim.

"You like falafel. What's the big deal?"

"Would you take it calmly if I told you I rented Must Love Dogs instead of Kung-Fu Hustle?" Mozzie turned a shocked look on Neal just long enough for the younger man to feel vindicated.

"I know you wouldn't do that. You hate John Cusack," he said uncertainly. Neal rolled his eyes.

"If I had known you would do this to me, I would have rented it just to spite you."

"Will you quit being such a baby about it? I brought cheesecake for dessert. You have to forgive me." For a second they stared each other down, Neal definitely sulky, Mozzie on the verge of laughing out loud at his friend. Then Neal deflated with a sigh.

"You bastard. You know all my weaknesses."

"And I exploit them regularly to keep you on your toes, yes. Now quit bitching and eat before it gets cold, will you?"

Occasionally-- not often, but from time to time-- the Enterprise gets sent on an easy mission, checking in on a colony planet, providing medical assistance to a fairly healthy population, or, god willing, heading off a disaster before it has a chance to get established. Bones likes doing vaccinations. Armed with a hypospray and a few crates full of serum, backed up by anyone qualified to handle a hypospray, there's something about inoculating thousands of people in one go that makes him feel more than usually effective. It's a nice feeling.

Not every mission goes so smoothly. More often than not, there are people that he can only provide palliative care for. Not everyone can be saved, and that rankles him-- in this day and age, with the technology and the knowledge available to him, there are still patients he loses. If he's lucky, the number of losses stays small and the number of saves many times outweighs them.

If he's not lucky, well, that's what he's laid in a good stock of whiskey for. So he needs a little help letting go of what he considers personal failures. Most days, it's not an issue.

It's because clearly Peter loves Neal and wants what is best for him even if that means keeping him on an electronic leash and scaring away his evil girlfriend. And Elizabeth loves him too which just makes everything better! They're all smart caring people which makes them all just sheer fun to watch and root for and I should really be asleep and not ramblng incoherently about why I love White Collar the most out of like everything on tv right now.

AHAHAHAHA I think BBT is the only one I still actively participate in, and as hilarious as this would be to apply to Pete and Pete, I actually got an idea for it with BBT so I'm running with that as far as this little plot bunny will take me.

"You guys are aware that Wii swordfighting doesn't qualify you to hold actual weapons, right?" Leonard asks uneasily, standing as far away from Howard and Raj as he can without actually escaping.

"Hush, Leonard. What we have here is an opportunity to see natural selection in action," Sheldon says, "because with the way Raj is waving that epee around, I'm fairly sure one of our friends is about to be evicted from the gene pool."

Of course, the foils are safety-tipped, but safety precautions have a way of catastrophically failing when it's Howard Wolowitz putting them to the test. He looks supremely ridiculous with his jester's hat replaced on top of the fencing mask. Leonard's already taking pictures.

"All right, gentlemen, en garde!" One of the ladies running the fencing demo area steps back. Howard's too busy ogling her chainmail top to defend himself when Raj rushes in with a war cry and stabs him right in the middle of the chest.

"Come on, dude. A little effort?"

"Sorry, sorry. Okay." They take a few steps back each, then go at it again. It's not quite as impressive as some of the lightsaber battles they've waged in the courtyard outside Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, but it's still pretty cool. Raj picked up some decent form by watching the fencers before them and not the wenches around them, and he manages to parry most of Howard's noisy thrusting to slay him a few more times.

"You got pretty into that," Leonard says when their friends rejoin them, "I think you might have some unresolved aggression issues, Raj."

"I just slew my best friend eight times. Oddly enough, I'm at peace with him now," Raj says, watching with a complete lack of surprise as Howard smarms his way up to a nearby cutie in a corset. "You and Sheldon should give it a try."

"Are you kidding? Even with the advantage of reach he has on me pretty much guaranteeing him success, when did you ever see Spock pick up a sword?"